The Worst Thing You Can Say To Someone Dealing With Depression

It doesn’t take a tragedy to bring on depression—in truth, depression is more a result of the internal environment than the external. I was 27 years old, pursuing my dreams in beautiful Los Angeles, and I’d finally had a breakthrough in my business that allowed me to quit my job and do more fulfilling work. I wrote in a gratitude journal, exercised, and practiced personal development. I was privileged, and I knew to count my blessings. To any outsider, there was no room for depression in such a complete life.

Yet there I was, lying on the floor in my bedroom, feeling utterly unmotivated, uninspired, unworthy. Normally a high-achiever, I felt completely apathetic about life. Thought after disempowering thought ran through my head: "What does any of this matter? I could die and it wouldn't make a difference to the rest of the world. I don’t know what I want, and even if I get it, it probably won’t fulfill me. There is so much suffering in the world, and I can’t do anything about it."

The worst part for me wasn't feeling depressed; it was being told that my feelings were wrong.

"You have so much to be happy about. You should be grateful!" Even more hurtful was when I'd open up about what I was struggling with and people would seem resentful or angry about my feelings: "You don’t have a right to be depressed! There are people out there who have it so much worse. Suck it up and stop being such a wimp."

But I was no better. I did the same thing to myself. Because of all my privilege, I felt like I didn’t deserve to be unhappy. I made myself feel bad for feeling bad.

As hopeless and lost as I felt during those times, I look back on them now with gratitude. That experience helped me cultivate a sense of appreciation, empathy, and peace.

My first breakthrough came when someone reached out to me to ask for coaching.

Before being consumed by apathy, I dreamed of being a personal development speaker and coach. I thought, "It’s funny how I can help others but still feel so stuck myself." Then, suddenly, the most obvious question came to mind: "If I were my own client, how would I coach me through this?"

I learned that my lack of clarity was a sign that I needed to take a break and reassess what mattered to me.

I had read so much in personal development about deciding what you want and then making a plan to go after it. But this advice does very little to help if you don't know what you want. It only made me feel worse about my lack of direction.

In the past, when my life had felt directionless, it had also felt meaningless. But after this realization, I began to allow myself to inhabit uncertainty with grace and ease. I stopped seeing the knowledge of what I must be doing as the goal and started enjoyed the process of discovery.

I also learned to be more understanding about the struggles of others. I cultivated more empathy and compassion I recognized that in some ways, having more can make you feel more isolated. The feeling that they have too much to validate unhappiness makes it incredibly difficult to acknowledge those feelings.